News Release Archive
NS MUSEUM--PRESCOTT HOUSE MUSEUM CELEBRATES MUSEUMS' DAY
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Prescott House Museum, Starr's Point, Kings County, is extending
an invitation to anyone with a taste for refined entertainment.
In celebration of Museums' Day, July 13, Prescott House is
holding an old fashioned garden party from 2 - 4 p.m.
Visitors will be able to wander along the flagstone path through
the charming garden with the melodious strains of fiddle music or
the sound of classical flute. Chris Leslie and Giles Herman, two
young musicians from Kentville, will be playing outside and in
the house lending the graceful party atmosphere.
The Loyalist Workers from Port Williams will be serving tea and
light refreshments on the lawn. There will be a tea cup
competition for any guests who wish to take part. The queen of
the Apple Blossom Festival, Queen Annapolisia, will award prizes
for the smallest tea-cup, the largest, the prettiest and the most
original tea-cup.
Hosting a garden party is a bit of a tradition at Prescott House.
In the early 1800's when Charles Ramage Prescott built the house,
then called "Acacia Grove", he had been a very successful Halifax
businessman. He received guests like Earl Dalhousie,
lieutenant-governor of the province. Almost a century later his
descendants returned to Acacia Grove and carried on the family
tradition of hospitality.
At his Starrs' Point property, Prescott raised 12 children, took
an active interest in the community, and developed his interest
in scientific horticulture.
In his garden there were pear, cherry, peach and plum trees. He
imported melons, grapes and dozens of other plants and flowers to
see what would grow and produce in the Nova Scotia climate.
Behind the house, on the three-acre property, grew an apple
orchard. Prescott became a pioneer of the apple industry in the
Annapolis Valley and was responsible for introducing Gravenstein
apples and other famous varieties, such as Northern Spy, to the
area.
A few years after Charles Prescott died in 1859, the family moved
and the house passed through many different hands and was finally
abandoned. In the 1930's Mary Prescott, Charles'
great-granddaughter, bought the decrepit house and began its
restoration. She and her sister moved into the house two years
later. They had collected some of the original furnishings their
family had used 100 years ago and acquired other lovely furniture
including some very fine oriental carpets.
While the Prescott sisters were living at Prescott House the
garden became an important feature of the property once again. A
Scottish landscape gardener, named Mary Stewart, designed the
rose and rock garden for Mary Prescott in 1935. Part of
Prescott's famous orchard still remained and the sisters added
tennis lawns to their property, making the house a perfect
location for garden parties, or weekend entertaining. Mary
Prescott mentions in her diary two large garden parties in 1936
and 1937 that were extremely successful.
In her diary, Mary lists the names of guests who visited Prescott
House. The list goes on and on. Guests invited for a weekend
could end up staying for weeks at a time, unable to resist the
hospitality and the delightful setting of Prescott House.
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Contact: Joan Waldron 902-424-7398
Emma McKennirey 902-424-6435
trp July 04, 1996 - 9:00 a.m.
